THE QUACK

AUDIO QUACK (SKIP INTRO 2:29)

Can’t be bothered to read? Let me read for you!

1996, Didcot Leisure Centre, I am five, and the oversized hand-me-down t-shirt is getting in the way as I attempt to dribble a ball. I do not want to be here, but my brothers want to learn how to play football, and well, majority rules. So here I am, tapping a ball with my tiny foot down a line of plastic blue cones that look like UFOs on the floor. UFOS that I wish would fly away.

The coach is side-stepping beside me, telling me to keep control. He’s an old geezer with black-framed glasses, wearing short- shorts and a bomber jacket. He likes the sound of his whistle. I do not.

At the end of the cones, is the goal, and we have one shot to get it in. All I want to do is get rid of the ball, so I can go home and resume Polly’s pool party in Polly Pocket land. The whistle screams. I flick my foot, and the ball bobs off to the left, far away from the white-painted box on the wall. I could have told them that would happen.

A couple of years later, I was in a gazebo at a celebrity cricket match in Bray. A few of us kids had spotted Gary Lineker and had surrounded him with our autograph books. I knew him as the man who spoke about football on the telly, but more importantly, he was the crisp guy.

I stood at the back of the group with my book open on the page and waited my turn. One by one, he asked each kid their name, then scribbled loudly in their books.

 “Mary,” I said when it was my turn. 

“Oh, James, mate,” he said over my head and walked off, leaving me alone with my blank page. It was another reason for me to hate football.

By the time I was ten, the only thing I appreciated about The Beautiful Game was Baddiel and Skinner’s Three Lions song. It’s catchy as hell. No matter my feelings though, the presence of football throughout my life has been intense.  If Mum brought art into my childhood home, Dad brought Tottenham.

“Come on you, Spurs!” He shouted down the hallways in the lead-up to a match, and then like parrots my brothers copied him.

“Come on you, Spurs!”

“Come on you, Spurs!”

“Come on you, Spurs!”

When it was on TV, the noise of a stadium at least fifty miles away would blare around the house like a huge Henry Hoover.

I’ve never liked the sound of a football match. If I had a say, I would mute the crowd and replace it with a gentle guitar soundtrack. The commentators wouldn’t be some shouty Londoners, but rather a poet with a slow, husky voice, as if Leonard Cohen himself was the commentator.

“Yes…Mr Kane is getting close to the sunlit goal…very close…ah….and there it is…the ball hitting the net… like a man returning home to his waiting lover…”

In 2005, I decided I would try and be a football fan. It was when Robbie Keane and Jermain Defoe were strikers, and the away kit was a cobalt blue and yellow. I like cobalt blue, so I got myself a shirt. I stuck a poster of Robbie Keane on my wall and would go with Dad to White Hart Lane on Saturdays to watch the match.

I lasted one season.

I wanted to see real boys, up close, on my Saturday. And so, Robbie Keane was replaced with Zac Efron. And I went back to grunting whenever a match was on.

I appreciate the atmosphere of a stadium, kind of like a Viking battlefield. And I get it… your heart falls out of your butt when you think you’ve lost, but then at 94 minutes 38 seconds there’s a goal. How thrilling. Yet, I’ve never reached the level of entrancement that I have witnessed in football fans.

When I got older, I mistakenly joined hot men in pubs to watch a match. I envisioned nice quality time together, ^{_{with the football in the background,}} while we have long chats about our feelings. A minute after kick off though, and it became apparent that it was going to be ^{_{me the background}}.

During those ninety minutes, that man is not with you in The Red Lion. Instead, they are floating somewhere between the pub chair and the stadium. 

At best, they will flick their eyes at you to see if you’re still alive……. and then they’re gone again. Shouting! Hovering! Clapping! Flapping!…Proving they are indeed capable of showing emotion. 

On the plus side, as they are semi-conscious of reality, I have found it’s the perfect time to get them to agree to do things that they would hate to do. 

(I find it’s best to do this during extra time when the score is tight).

“Hey, Steven, Steven, Steven…We’re going to dinner with Brad from accounts and his wife. You know, the one with the six-pack and the Ferrari, who likes to slap you on the back and call you champ. Is that ok? Steven? Steven? Steven….?”

“Yeah…yeah…yeah…” Steven says quickly, with his eyes stuck to the screen and his hands squashing his skull. 

After living with football for 32 years, I have learnt to endure the lack of attention I receive from September to May.

It’s when I’m led to believe that the season is over, but then start seeing a suspicious number of St George’s flags splattered around that the dread kicks in.

 “…But the World Cup was just on ….What?….Euros?….Didn’t we vote out?!”

The only time I like football is when we’re winning by half-time in the semi-finals, and then I tiptoe onto the bandwagon.

Mum’s partner, Rich, said I’m not allowed to jump on the bandwagon, that the only way I can be a supporter is if I can name any other England player who isn’t Harry Kane. Obviously, I can’t. Obviously.

Still, I waltz into the pub and demand them all to budge up and make room for me. And then like the rest of the coutry, watch and hope that this year –

it comes home. 

BLOG SOUNDTRACK (what else?)